A conventional method of spine repair involves immobilizing weakened, damaged or diseased segments of the vertebrae by attaching a fusion-promoting implant or prosthesis to adjacent vertebral bodies. These fusion-promoting implants may be inserted laterally, and configured to hold a biologically active material to enhance bone ingrowth. The implants are typically manipulated and delivered with an instrument system that engages the implant using one or more delivery tools attached to a tool engaging hole. Once deployed, however, the tool engaging hole is typically left open or exposed. This allows the potential for undesired leakage of material out of the implant into surrounding tissue. For example, when used with a biologically active material such as a recombinant bone morphogenic protein, biologic molecules may leak into the surrounding iliopsoas muscle and cause inflammation, numbness, pain, weakness, flexion contractures, etc.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an accessory that can be used with these types of fusion implant devices and biologically active materials to prevent such migration of material out of the devices and into the surrounding tissues. It would be even more desirable to provide such an accessory having ease of use, and compatibility with a variety of known and currently available fusion implants.